Raymond Speer wrote:
[snip complaints about meanie-heads]
> Also, I am disgusted by the reference to Matt Giwer's politics. I
> oppose net Nazis when they praise their Fuhrer and the annilation of
> racial enemies --- but Giwer was not doing that here.
The reference is relevant, for this particular individual.
There are Nazis who have gone on, I'll concede, to work for world peace
and the reconciliation of peoples of all nations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Waldheim
Equally we are free to imagine Nazis who are on-topic contributors to
soc.history.what-if :
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/0634e97bb3a22ad2
But in this case we are not discussing J Random Aryan-Supremacist. We
are talking about Matt G*wer. If newsgroups can have enemies, then
G*wer is an enemy of s.h.w-i. Even part of our charter was hand-crafted
back in '95 with the intent of making it easier for us get his ISPs to
pull him when he peddles his poisonous propaganda. But he is malicious,
determined and comes back again and again, ready to drive a wedge
through whatever crack we leave in the NG.
He used aliases so often to spout his lies that we made a game, '2
points!' for spotting one of his sockpuppets. If you check this NG's
stats for all-time frequent posters:
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/about?hl=en
you'll see him in positions number 1, 2 and 8. [This may not be
entirely duplicity on his part, but also an artefact of his frequent
terms of service denial.] Can you name three good timelines he's
generated in those tens of thousands of posts?
The man is a troll, arguably our worst ever. That he is a Nazi is
relevant for the Big Lie he peddles - the Holocaust he secretly delights
in while denying, all the better to rehabilitate his precious National
Socialists. Were he a different sort of political extremist - a
Trotskyite, say, or a Goldwater Republican - then his trollery would not
take the form he does.
In this instance G*wer was engaged in a off-Charter thread. Not his
favourite off-Charter topic, of course. But not something to be
encouraged, to be coddled, either. The man is, from experience,
impervious to either reason or request. But as Noel so perspicaciously
noted, a thoughtful newbie could be nudged in the right direction. So
why not?
[Gentle reader, you may be wondering why I'm telling Ray all this.
Hasn't he been on s.h.w-i longer than I and knows this already? We'll,
yes he has and yes he should. I'm really just dropping an FYI for
newcomers, who may not be _au fait_ with our history and the trolls who
have tried to wreck the NG as a forum for AH discussion. Now back to
the what-ifs.]
- Syd |
